LM,
It would be ease for someone to see by oil analysis that the LE 8130 does have Boron at 146 ppm, Zinc at 1522, and Phos at 1160. They use 70% Group IV and 30% Group 2+. You would also see that the 8800 has very similar #'s for all of the above additives. However they use a Group I base oil for reasons that benefit the slightly different additive package and seem to work better than by using a higher Base oil group. I am restricted in talking about why this happens or what LE does to make it happen (sorry). No Moly is used in any of LE's products.
Have similar tests been done on LE 8130? yes but quite some time ago. All of the oils have been upgraded and the results would not be accurate today. (LE 8130 at the time did almost as well as the 8800 15w-40)and it has been upgraded also.
Does LE use sequence IIIE testing? All oils have to test IIIE in order to pass the API classifications. I am instructed to not publish these results, however in the IIIE test you must be able to go 67.5 min. before an increase in viscosity of 375% is reached. I can say that after many! more min. LE only had an 80% increase in viscosity. That should give you a good idea without giving you the test #'s.
Other tests that an oil must pass for API certification are CAT-1N, WDN, TGF, TLHC, Oil Consumption, Mack T-* Vis increase @3.8% soot est. Max, Filter Pressure drop @ EOT kPa, Roller Follower Test, Wear- mils - Max, Seq IIIE Hours to 375% vis increase min. CRC L-38 Bearing Whight loss MG Max, 10 Hour stripped viscosity cSt min, Cummins corrosion bench test, copper increase ppm max, lead increase ppm max, tim increase ppm max, D130 copper strip rating and i'm sure some more that I can't think of right now. The seq IIIE as you can see is just one of the tests that all oil mfg's have to pass. These test results are what tell the best oils. However the oil companies have spent many thousands of $$$ to do this testing and this test data info is just not given out to anyone. Sorry.
Kevin Dinwiddie